Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Long View: Their master’s voice

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The more important thing for me now is to devote my time to my candidacy and not the 18,000 or more local candidates. This is, in a way, an important step for the party and for myself.

-Gilbert Teodoro Jr., March 30, 2010

The Long View
Their master’s voice
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:05:00 03/31/2010

IN “PRESIDENTIAL BANDWAGON: PARTIES and Party Systems in the Philippines,” Japanese scholar Yuko Kasuya set out to work on a problem. Here’s her own summary of what her work was about: “In the wake of democratization, one of the biggest challenges facing new governments is managing a smooth transition to democratic rule.” This was the specific problem Filipinos faced in 1986 after the dictatorship fell.

So Kasuya asked, “How can newly elected governments stabilize their hold on power and consolidate democratic processes?” Or, put another way, “Under what conditions might an apparently successful transition misfire?”

Kasuya “explores these questions by focusing on one of the most pressing issues in consolidating democracy: the stability of party politics.” And she also asks, why is it that “the party system changed from a stable two-party system to an unstable multi-party system in the aftermath of democratization in the Philippines?”

Kasuya argues that “the shortened presidential term limit from two terms to one under the new Constitution was the major factor that destabilized the party system in the post-Marcos era.” The nature of the president’s term means that parties have no reason to stick together to support the re-election of a president; that, furthermore, presidents keep their focus on simply keeping their coalitions together during their time in office, but loss much of their ability to influence who would replace them.

And a longer presidential term also means a longer period in the wilderness for politicians, who could be attracted to join each president’s temporary coalition, depriving opposition parties of leaders to wait in the wings.

But all the efforts to nurture a coalition from scratch (to keep governors and congressmen fat and happy, or to prevent an opposition victory in the Senate), all the things that keep presidents busy for six years melt away as soon as the campaign for their successors begin. The present Frankenstein coalition is two-thirds Lakas-CMD and one third Kampi, the former itself a hybrid created to provide a political vehicle for Fidel V. Ramos and the latter manufactured by President Macapagal-Arroyo’s husband as a vehicle for his wife. Lakas itself withered away during the brief Estrada presidency, and it took repeated jolts of patronage to finally assemble the present Lakas-Kampi-CMD.

On Monday news came that Gilbert Teodoro Jr. had resigned his post as party chair, followed less than a day later by the party president, Miguel Dominguez. Asked to respond to Teodoro’s resignation, Speaker Prospero Nograles said, “It is a shock to me and without consultation from us, the previous leaders of the party. [I] am now confused and seem to be out of the loop.” When asked about Dominguez, he said, “What has happened to our party, to each his own?”

Yet only a few days before (on March 26), the party nomenklatura had gathered in Mandaluyong to witness the signing of a “Green Covenant,“ with Prospero Pichay (he of the repeated assurances the Frankenstein coalition has 33 percent of the national vote in the bag) in proud attendance. Except to be Green requires more than sentimental ties. Or it may simply be that the kick-off of the local races led provincial allies to discover that Teodoro had no goodies to dispense.

Which makes quite relevant the March 29 statement of Sen. Richard Gordon in Hilongos, Leyte, who tartly observed, “Traditional politicians will go to Villar. They see how much money that guy is really pouring. They are just waiting for their campaign funds.” No money, no honey, and the flies, having buzzed around Teodoro for some months, have decided to feast elsewhere. The biggest and juiciest of them – the ones, incidentally, on whose shoulders would rest the much-vaunted Pichay prediction of a 33 percent administration percentage regardless of public opinion – had been droning over to Villar’s side for days.

Three days before Teodoro threw in the towel as far as the party chairmanship was concerned, provincial kingpin Chavit Singson announced that he was officially supporting Sen. Manuel Villar. Another provincial kingpin, Jose Zubiri, has done likewise (though his sons remain officially members of the ruling coalition). Alvin Garcia in Cebu has publicly gone for Villar, while Gov. Gwen Garcia has publicly endorsed Loren Legarda for vice president. Other Lakas officials began trickling into the Villar camp late last year, as Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao did in October and the Eusebios of Pasig did in November.

Something mentioned in Bukidnon Online piqued my interest: It was the elder Zubiri’s claim that he had invited Teodoro to address his provincemates in order to “dispel rumors he is a mere puppet of outgoing President Arroyo,” only to be snubbed. Now Edwin Espejo, in the same article in which he reported talk that party secretary-general Francis Manglapus also relinquished his party post, also quoted Fidel V. Ramos as commenting that Teodoro would have to make a bold move: “Gibo will have to do something¦ he will likely do it. “Was he talking of an FVR-style bolting of the coalition? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The President’s American spokesman, Gary Olivar, cheekily snorted it’s a “win-win” situation, and for once he may have been telling the truth. Teodoro remains an ongoing experiment. But a sideshow.

The clincher is in the same article by Espejo: “Party insiders said that they have been receiving reports that the husband of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been calling Lakas-KAMPI-CMD officials to shift their support to Villar.”

Jinggoy Estrada once complaint that Villar had shoplifted their theme and campaign color. His father’s spokesmen have pointed out that the stampede to the NP is merely the same dogs with different collars obeying the same master’s voice.

(the Frankenstein Coalition’s April Fools’ Day reshuffle is here: Shake-up rocks Lakas-CMD Kampi leadership.)

The Long View Evolution of elections

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The Long View
Evolution of elections
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:27:00 03/28/2010

FROM the first post-Edsa Presidential election in 1992, to the present, we’ve made a transition from the retail campaigns of the past to the wholesale media politics of the present. If the 1940s and 1950s witnessed the transition from the era when politicians slowly climbed the political party ladder and relied on local leaders to deliver the votes, to a time when the jingle, media exposure and populism gained the upper hand, it was still a time when the personal touch reigned supreme.

Magsaysay heralded the crumbling of the party system and leadership by seniority borne on the shoulders of entrenched local leaders. But those scrambling to be his heirs took things even further: Macapagal barnstormed the country, trying to shake the hand of every voter; Aquino and Marcos helicopter-hopped their way around the country. And as with all transitions for much of this time the old coexisted with the new. The Last Hurrah of the old parties was the 1969 election and then martial law put in place something new that was old at the same time.

Marcos was a man of his generation: his political ideas had jelled during his student days and the Japanese Occupation: the era of the one-party state, of the cozy and obedient relationship between provincial barons and the national leadership, and which was more inclined to flirt with concepts like Bushido rather than Jeffersonian democracy. The controlled campaigns of the New Society were plebiscites rather than elections, yet the collapse of the dictatorship saw the first flowering of mass media, and even technology (and distrust of it) in the truly modern sense. Both proved double-edged swords then, as now; tools for the party in power yet susceptible to undermining the carefully crafted messaging and machinery of the political pros.

The 1992 and 1998 campaigns witnessed another transition, from the Marcos-style big machine politics and the majority-oriented elections from 1935 to 1986 to the more chaotic, minority-takes-all multiparty system we have today. Candidates increasingly discovered that the population had gotten so immense as to make it impossible to pursue a 1960s-style barrio-to-barrio campaign: you could never shake enough voters’ hands to compete with the power of advertising to deliver a message to a gigantic electorate. Yet again, the old continued to coexist with the new; if ballot-stuffing proved increasingly inefficient, manipulating the results by means of accounting tricks was only limited in its effect by candidates being able to maintain a cheat-proof lead.

The 2004 and 2010 elections (in a sense) have restored the old one-on-one nature of the presidential elections with the lesser candidates serving as strategic obstacles to the main contenders: the politics of addition coexisting with the politics of subtraction. In 2004 the administration found itself handicapped by competition on the local level between its coalition partners while the opposition was, itself, divided and clung to old-style populism. In 2010 we are seeing three contending strategies. The administration has machinery, but is saddled with the President’s kiss of death, nationally speaking; the Villar campaign has pursued matters along the line of a corporation, with professional industry managers calling the shots, keeping the traditional politicians at arms’ length. All modern media methods have been used, and resources massively deployed, along the lines of targeting what the campaign believes will not only attract the most voters, but build an impression of inevitability – the bandwagon attempt.

The Villar campaign succeeded in achieving the critical 25-percent rating threshold conventional wisdom held as determining the front-runner. But it did so in August, just when the political landscape changed with the death of Cory Aquino. It deployed its resources to saturate the airwaves in the pre-campaign season, achieving, at one point, near-parity with the leading contender. But it has somehow failed to overtake the leading contender and if the coming polls continue their trend, the gap is once again widening just when electoral rules are limiting the ability of the Villar machine to pour money into the airwaves.

The Aquino campaign, on the other hand, has tried to build a wide-ranging coalition where traditionalists at times unhappily coexist with NGOs. And so, at times, the focus is on the provincial stump and then on the media war: with the Internet becoming a factor for the first time, though perhaps purely in a negative sense for all candidates. While Villar has the Nacionalista Party as a kind of façade disguising the corporate structure of his campaign, the Liberal Party has traditionalists and reformists in uneasy partnership within its own ranks, eyed skeptically by outsiders who themselves distrust the media-centric nature of campaigns today. At the same time, handicapped by a lack of resources and a scrupulous regard for the rules, it could not, would not, and so didn’t, engage in carpet bombing by means of media prior to the official campaign: and focused on the old-fashioned, exhausting, plaza-to-plaza campaigning that invigorates politicians but is no longer the favored means for getting to know candidates for voters.

Where nothing has changed is election day: it will be a battle of getting one’s voters to vote while other voters face disqualification, terrorism, bribery and other means to prevent their voting. Then comes the usual chicanery in the counting, aided by power failures and harassment along the way: as the two leading candidates are now experiencing at the hands of the Comelec. Both have lawyers aplenty to ensure they adhere to the already-generous ad limits. Alleging they’ve exceeded it is the politics of subtraction: to instill doubt in voters that their candidate follows laws the administration creatively disobeys.

SWS and BusinessWorld released, today, the latest (March 19-22) survey results for the presidential and vice-presidential derby. Additional background readings can be found in my articles, The Road to Edsa (1996), Men of the year, 2000, and The May Day Rebellion, as well as  Elections are Like Water and Perception is King (2004), An Abnormal Return to Normality and The Perpetual Avoidance of Opportunity, Marcos in Retrospect (2) and The machinery’s in place (2007) In this corner, The possibility of a Majority, A Tandem for Democracy, (2009) What’s at Stake in the Senate Race , The battle for the Arroyo babies, and Errors in Judgment (2010); and John Nery’s articles, The 2010 Race is Set, The Vice-Presidency is Subtraction, An Agenda Waiting for a President, A History Lesson for Chiz, and Nick Joaquin’s Ayos na ang Buto-Buto (1963), Napoleon Rama’s Ferdinand E. Marcos, Man of the Year, 1965, and Teodoro L. Locsin’s Jr.’s Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Man of the Year, 1971.

The Long View: The great debate

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The Long View
The great debate
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:59:00 03/24/2010

AFTER THE DUST SETTLES, it will be interesting to see how many voters watched the presidential and vice-presidential debates, and how many modified their choices accordingly. But early on, it seems to me two things are evident. First, the positive contribution debates can make to the general campaign has been reduced by having too many of them and too often under too many rules and different sponsors. We are generally familiar with the American model, in which during the entire campaign there are only three, sometimes two, nationally televised debates. In the United Kingdom, for the first time they are having prime ministerial debates, and there will be three of these, too, during a much shorter campaign period. Second, the debates ought to now shift to the last, remaining great debates the country deserves to witness: between the two leading contenders as well as their running mates.

The dictionary defines a debate as “a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward” or “an argument about a particular subject, especially one in which many people are involved.” In 2004 the two leading contenders declined to debate each other, but in 2007, the senatorial debates attracted public interest – and attention. So far, the candidates, presidential and vice-presidential, have faced each other: most recently when Sen. Manuel Roxas II wiped the floor, so to speak, with Sen. Loren Legarda.

The leading contenders have been hammered in turn for missing some of the debates. For example, both weren’t at the very first debate, the UNDP MDG Forum (back in October when Francis Escudero was still in the running) or at the one sponsored by Pastor Quiboloy. Sen. Benigno Aquino III also missed the Romulo Foreign Policy Forum, while Sen. Manuel Villar didn’t attend the Harapan debate at University of Santo Tomas, and the FOCAP forum where Aquino turned up.

Faced with the logistical aspects of truly national campaigns, neither could ignore considerations on the ground despite the publicity offered by debates. On the other hand, the other candidates had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and fewer logistical considerations to consider in attending and ganging up on the leading candidates. That Great Gadfly, Richard Gordon, in particular, has taken turns hurling fire and brimstone with characteristic bravado at whoever happens to be leading at any particular time.

Aquino, however, has challenged Villar to a one-on-one debate. The NP standard bearer has accepted, but there doesn’t seem to be progress in the negotiations despite the well-known American presidential debate formats being proposed by the LP. One can only hope that both sides can agree on an organization to host the debate(s), a suitable venue, with the major networks agreeing to pool their coverage. There isn’t any point in reinventing the wheel, what with the contractual aspect of the American presidential debates available for downloading online: they are scrupulous in detailing everything from the placement of podiums, the provision of water and notepaper, the handling of questions, and so forth to prevent media editorializing or giving undue advantage to any party involved.

Whether the other candidates and their supporters like it or not, there are two leading contenders. Everyone has had ample opportunity to duke it out but the country deserves to see the two square off against each other. This will either redound to the benefit of one of the two leading contenders – or to the benefit of the others, since one might shine, or both might not. But by all means let’s compare apples, not apples and oranges.

Aquino’s challenge and its acceptance by Villar mean both have committed to a one-on-one debate, without prejudice to other debates being proposed or held, but which, really, neither needs to attend until they have settled their unfinished business with each other in what will be the Great Debate of the campaign. That is, if the NP standard bearer was serious about accepting the challenge or, even if he was, whether, having craftily calculated the risks, he now considers it a losing proposition to show up. Aquino has expressed exasperation with the foot-dragging of Villar, who, after all, has a marked disinclination to engage in interpolation in the Senate, unlike Aquino’s dogged reputation (dating back to his days in the House) for being the “last man standing.”

Villar himself followed his usual procedure by remaining silent, leaving one of his senatorial candidates to insist that Aquino’s claims to the contrary (he said his spokesman has approached the NP twice), they haven’t gotten anything and there’s no need to submit letters. This suggests, however, that the NP is playing for time, trying to figure out whether their candidate can afford to flee the field of combat yet again, leaving the fighting to his subordinates as he did when pinned down in the Senate.

The Nacionalistas have to buckle down to business and work things out with the Liberals as we approach the Holy Week vacation. Then the Great Debate(s) can take place in what will be the last leg of the campaign from the resumption of the campaign after Easter leading to election day itself. This is a risky proposition for both candidates, but the country should see whether one or the other, or both, deserve their leading contender status.

On the same principle of not mixing apples and oranges, there should be a separate vice-presidential debate between Roxas and Legarda as the frontrunners, a logical rematch after their recent encounter. A tandem debate only makes sense if the country votes on the basis of joint tickets, which isn’t the case as we elect the president and vice president separately.

The Long View: Presidential tar pit

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The Long View
Presidential tar pit
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:53:00 03/21/2010

YOU have to wonder why President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has to provoke the legal community – and the public, too – by insisting on appointing the next chief justice. To be sure, part of it is due to her relishing the powers and prerogatives of her office up to 11:59:59 a.m. June 30, 2010. Another is that she is never content with a partial victory if a total one can be achieved, particularly if it allows her to spite her many critics. A third would be that she also enjoys proving her writ extends beyond the limits of her office. And the fourth, which I’d like to focus on, is that she hopes to diminish all her potential successors even as they’re campaigning to obtain a popular mandate in May.

We haven’t yet reached the point of no return: the Supreme Court has reversed past precedents and ignored the consensus in the legal community on the issue; it has also been dismissive of public opinion. That old maxim “when the guns speak, the law falls silent” is not just a warning but a threat: if the ultimate interpreters of what the law says – that is, the Supreme Court – is to be defied, it can only imperil the stability of society itself, substituting a flawed legal system with the law of the jungle.

For this reason, every attempt to challenge the Supreme Court has collapsed with the justices’ willingness to call the bluff of every other institution as well as to ignore the court of public opinion. After Edsa II, the legitimacy of the new administration was resolved in the Supreme Court. When the unwillingess of the Supreme Court to subject its finances to public scrutiny was challenged in Congress, the impeachment effort marshaled by Gilbert Teodoro Jr. collapsed in the face of the Court’s own challenge to the House of Representatives: obey us and stop this, or we will have to authorize the chief executive to enforce the law – an ultimate nightmare scenario for lawmakers; for when the guns speak, the legislature falls silent, too.

When the Iron Curtain fell, and partial credit was given to Pope John Paul II for communism’s fall, pundits regularly re-quoted Stalin’s dismissive comment “How many divisions has the pope?” as proof of the blindness of dictators to the power of organized religion. In a similar manner, the judiciary has no army, but it is armed with the public’s instinctive – however grudging – obedience to the law, because it fears a radical outcome.

At the heart of the President’s zest for creating divisions by means of artificial crises – she could very well have respected tradition, exercised self-control and preferred stability to strife by simply letting the appointment be handled by her successor – is her recognition of the public’s fear of things getting out of hand, trumping decency and justice. At the heart of the high court’s majority decision is a similar zest to wield power and subdue opposition, calculating on the public’s aversion to inaugurating the next administration with a constitutional crisis.

In response, the presidential candidates have, remarkably enough, achieved a consensus but disagree on how, specifically, to manifest their commonly held objection to the President appointing the next chief justice.

Noynoy Aquino had previously stated he was opposed to the appointment and would refuse to recognize a chief justice appointed by the incumbent in the waning months of her term. He also said that if a case were to be made that the Supreme Court had decided on anything other than sound legal principles, the justices involved might be opening themselves up to an impeachment case in the next Congress. Nick Perlas has taken a similar stand: he will not recognize a chief justice appointed by the President and will support a petition for review of the decision before the high court. Manny Villar was very terse, saying he was saddened by the decision but otherwise remaining silent. Dick Gordon also said he was saddened by the ruling, but whoever is appointed would have to stay rather than provoke a constitutional crisis.

Gibo Teodoro earlier described the issue as divisive: carefully phrasing his objection to the President’s intent by saying if there’s no vacancy, there should be no appointment, because that appointment would always have a cloud of doubt hanging over the new chief justice. More recently he said even if she can make an appointment, the President should refrain from doing so anyway. Joseph Estrada took a similar approach, saying it’s a question of delicadeza, and JC de los Reyes said the next president should make the appointment. Jamby Madrigal is more uncompromising, insisting that the appointment should be revoked.

So far, none of the candidates have tied their hands by saying they intend to personally sign any motion for reconsideration filed before the Supreme Court. For those inclined not to recognize an Arroyo-appointed chief justice, there seems to be a practical legal reason for this. Were a candidate, subsequently elected president, to appeal to the Court, the lawyers could say that by participating, personally, in the process, he had been estopped, or barred, from further questioning the legality of the appointment, should the court uphold its ruling.

What the President wants is to bring the candidates down to her level by provoking them into acting in a manner that might suit an activist but is contrary to public expectation of the measured, firm, deliberative but temperate – or at least, not reckless – behavior that should characterize a president. Every candidate then has to walk a tightrope suspended over a tar pit, sticky and bubbling, created by the President herself. The candidate who loses his balance will fall into the pit, and the President doesn’t lack for people who will hoot and jeer at whoever ends up looking more like a fanatic than a chief executive.

The Long View: Errors in judgment

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The Long View
Errors in judgment
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:05:00 03/18/2010

Gilbert Teodoro Jr.’s campaign slogan, “Galing at Talino,” points to his perceived strength as a candidate. This is supported by the reasons given by those who say they will vote for him.

From February 20-26, the Manila Standard Today conducted its most recent survey on presidential preferences, a survey viewed as quite credible within political circles. Among those who identified themselves as Teodoro voters, his most likeable characteristic was his being “Smart/Capable” (35 percent). When supporters were asked how likely it was that their current preference might change, the results were interesting: 10 percent of his supporters said their choice “Will definitely still change,” while 42 percent said it “Possibly [could] still change,” 13 percent said it would “Possibly no longer change” and 34 percent said it “Will definitely no longer change.”

This is the opinion of the already committed. But what about the broader electorate?

In the same survey, those surveyed as a whole (composed of registered voters) were asked the most disliked characteristics of Teodoro. First came “I don’t know him” (17 percent), followed by “A lackey of the current administration” (14 percent). These are shortcomings that could potentially be addressed if the President’s party committed respectable resources to her candidate: the campaign itself is almost two-thirds of the way through.

Journalist Ricky Carandang has been doing research on this and decided to compare the advertising President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo bought during her 2004 presidential campaign, with Teodoro’s. Carandang was informed by Nielsen that Ms Arroyo had 914 minutes of commercials in the 2004 campaign (her primary rival the late Fernando Poe Jr. took out 1,924 minutes of ads).

Pera’t Pulitika, the NGO which is monitoring election-related expenses by all the candidates, informed Carandang of the TV ad placements and spending of the candidates both prior to, and since the campaign began on Feb. 9, as of March 8.

Prior to the official campaign period, when the sky was the limit on advertising expenses, Manuel Villar Jr. took out 2,054 minutes of TV ads: 845.75 minutes on ABS, 876.25 minutes on GMA. He took out an additional 332 minutes of ads in other stations and 6,677 minutes of ads on radio.

Teodoro, in contrast, had 776 minutes of ads (342 on ABS, 305 on GMA, 232 in other networks) and 2,111 minutes of ads on radio. This was a respectable allocation of resources, exceeding Noynoy Aquino’s, for example, by 350 minutes on TV and by 1,100 minutes on radio, though not much ahead of Gordon, whom he exceeded by only about 100 minutes on TV.

But the result of that effort was negligible. This suggests that an even bigger push should be taking place to further advertise Teodoro, but he is wedded to the same old-fashioned stumping as his cousin Aquino, overlooking the fact that we have an electorate grown so large, one can never hope to shake enough hands and make that personal connection within the three months allotted to campaigning.

Pera’t Pulitika says current laws allow each presidential candidate to spend P500 million during the official campaign period (calculated at P10 per registered voter and with 50 million registered voters). Villar is estimated to have already spent 21 percent of his total allowable budget on media placements, and Aquino 16 percent.

In contrast to the two leading candidates, Teodoro has allocated only 0.5 percent of his allowable campaign budget specifically for media placements. In its communication to Carandang, Pera’t Pulitika noted that regulations permit 120 minutes of ads per network: Villar has already used up 66.25 percent of his allocation in ABS-CBN and 66.25 percent in GMA; Aquino has used up 63.33 percent in ABS-CBN and 55 percent in GMA. Teodoro has used up none of his quota in ABS-CBN and only 1.25 percent in GMA.

Another measure, in simple peso terms, says it all: Villar has spent P98 million on TV ads in the first month of the official, three-month campaign period; Aquino, P77 million; and Teodoro, the candidate of the presumably cash-rich administration, P31 million.

Would Teodoro, in any other election, be a formidable candidate? Maybe. But if timing is everything, his timing says something of his judgment, and his taking on handicaps to a serious candidacy.

The first is one of sheer demographics. In a sense he is haunted by the economic performance of the President he served so loyally. Pulse Asia reported he has 17 percent of the class ABC vote but only 7 percent of class D and a mere 4 percent of class E, the two overwhelmingly largest classes. The problem is that while the upper class has profited rather handsomely from the President’s policies, the middle class has, itself, shrunk. The D and E classes generally despise the administration.

Teodoro’s identification with the administration negates his personal strengths. At best he is an eloquent Cesar Virata to our latter-day Ferdinand Marcos in a skirt. Ramon Magsaysay, after all, bolted the unpopular Quirino administration as he set out to make the transition from defense secretary to president. This flaw in judgment is compounded by Teodoro’s belief in machinery above all. Lakas-Kampi-CMD leader Prospero Pichay Jr. continues to maintain that the administration will deliver 33 percent of the votes in May. The other veterans of the KBL running for the presidency all seem biased in favor of machinery, official or not, too. But to whom will the local machines deliver?

I have heard it said that Teodoro himself is peeved over the way the administration is hedging its bets, with him as the minor candidate among the President’s official and unofficial horses in the presidential race. That he has publicly kept mum about this galling state of affairs is what deprives him of even the benefit of the doubt. With every intention of sticking it out with the administration, he seems content to be a patsy.

The Long View: What’s at stake in the Senate race

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The Long View
What’s at stake in the Senate race
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 03/15/2010

OVER the past few years the only real obstacle to the President’s ambitions has been the Senate. The Senate we elect in May can either hinder or help the next administration, depending on two things: who is elected president, and whether that president will enjoy the support of a cooperative majority in the upper house. Put another way, the next president has to have a working majority in the face of what will surely be a committed opposition coming from the supporters of whichever of the two main contenders loses (including one of the two main contenders who, if defeated, will remain in the Senate) plus the bloc of the current administration which might position itself as a critical swing vote on bills and the chamber’s leadership.

The conventional wisdom, backed by the example of every administration since 1935, is that the House will be controlled by the next administration, with the Speakership essentially determined by presidential patronage. This was the case even in the era of the two-party system, when the ruling party lost the presidency but retained the House (in 1953, when LP incumbent Quirino lost; in 1961 when NP incumbent Garcia lost; and in 1965, when LP incumbent Macapagal lost, the administration party in these instances maintained its control of the House). By midterm of the Magsaysay, Macapagal and Marcos administrations, House control had shifted to the incumbent’s party. President Arroyo wants to deny the next president the Speakership – a bold bid indeed.

The Senate, on the other hand, goes into 2010 with 12 senators with terms until 2013: two independents, Escudero and Honasan; two Liberals, Aquino and Pangilinan; two Lakas Kampi-CMD, Arroyo and Zubiri (who is already being touted as the leader-in-waiting of the Frankenstein Coalition since the President will be going to the House and Teodoro’s chances are slim); two from UNO, Lacson and Trillanes; two NP, Alan Cayetano and Villar; an LDP, Angara; and an NPC, Legarda. In reality, the blocs might be more like this, based on the two front-runners: the Aquino bloc of four (Aquino, Escudero, Lacson, Pangilinan) versus the Villar bloc of five (Arroyo, Cayetano, Legarda, Trillanes, Villar) with Angara, Honasan, Zubiri up for grabs depending on who else gets elected.

If Aquino wins, the Liberals and allies will start off with three in the Senate; if Villar wins, then the NP and friends can count on four to start with, unless Legarda also wins, in which case the starting count can be four or three, depending if the NP tandem wins or not.

Veteran senators Pia Cayetano (NP), Drilon (LP), Enrile (PMP), Estrada (PMP), Sergio Osmena III (affiliated with LP), Recto (LP), Revilla (admin) and Santiago (PRP) are widely expected to win: that’s already eight, leaving only four slots for the rest, including Lapid of the admin and Sotto of the NPC, and first-timers, of whom, for now, the ones with the best chances seem to be Guingona and Biazon of the LP, Marcos of the NP, De Venecia of the PMP: in the latter’s case, one can only hope (properly, to my mind) that he’s poised to be suitably rewarded for his whistle-blowing efforts by election to the upper house.

If we assume the top eight as shoo-ins, this expands the respective LP and NP blocs from four to seven and five to six. The wildcard bloc, so to speak, would go from three to seven, but more likely disposed to collaborate with the LP than the NP.

But the LP could considerably improve matters if it manages to get Guingona and Biazon elected (with Hontiveros-Baraquel and Roco still having a fighting chance at this point), which is the challenge confronting Francis Pangilinan, the LP campaign manager for his party’s senatorial ticket. At stake is his future within a party long uneasy about his past closeness to Villar, and his prospects as either a potential Senate president or even vice-presidential contender in 2016. Either he will actively seize the reins, barnstorm the country, move heaven-and-earth to get the resources needed by the LP ticket to get at least four more from its ticket elected, or he will have to take the blame and the corresponding dilution of his political clout, if the slate he manages fails to achieve its electoral potential.

The NP, on the other hand, can still work on getting Gwendolyn Pimentel and Gilbert Remulla who remain viable contenders; if the LP manages to elect two more, its bloc would reach nine; the NP could conceivably elect eight in total.

In both cases even if they lose a senator because Aquino or Villar becomes president, the nucleus of an administration majority is there: with the Estrada (PMP) and PaLaKa blocs angling to decide the actual leadership of the Senate. Any bloc with 13 members determines the leadership of the Senate and the prioritization of bills. A bloc of 16 will be as iron-clad a majority as one can ever hope for, enabling constitutional amendments to pass, for example. Any bloc with at least nine members can block things quite effectively, including a shift to a unicameral parliamentary system; a bloc of eight can’t, on its own, stop things, but makes a case-to-case coalition to stop specific legislation quite easy, not to mention keeping the leadership on edge about coups.

The electorate, conventional wisdom also says, likes to cherry-pick its choices for the Senate on the basis of promoting a kind of informal checks-and-balances by not giving any slate too strong a showing; balanced, in turn, by a mischievous combination of electing senators either on the basis of solid qualifications or merely for entertainment value. Considering the challenges ahead, a critical choice, at least for supporters of the two leading contenders, is to ensure their presidential bet also obtains a working majority in the upper house.

Second leg

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digging up old issues

Free Press editorial cartoon, circa 1965.

In a sense, the campaign is over for many voters: at least, this is the impression I get. The surveys seem to agree that the undecided number about 6% of the electorate, which can make or break the chances of either of the leading candidates. The campaigning then, as it enters the middle period (the home stretch comes after Holy Week), focuses on three things: keeping the base, chipping away at the base of other opponents, and convincing the undecided. But the respective bases of the two leading candidates seem to be fairly stable and much as the campaign has taken an increasingly aggressive tone, the bases don’t seem to be shifting so much. This makes for a campaign in which those bases will probably tend to tune out, having made up their minds.

This is particularly true because the big push for many candidates took place before the official campaign even began: in the November-February period.

Normally, the formalities surrounding party conventions and the nomination of official candidates was supposed to take place in January, followed immediately by the presidential campaign itself in February. Because of automation, the filing of candidacies was moved to November and there was supposed to be an artificial hiatus until February, except the Supreme Court decided there would be no hiatus so to speak, which meant that essentially an extended pre-campaign period took place from October to February.

This was particularly crucial for the candidates in terms of TV and radio advertising. See the Pera’t Pulitika cover letter to Ricky Carandang, explaining its data, and see the Pera’t Pulitika data on November-February ad spending and February-March spending with legal limits kicking in (you can compare these figures with the Nielsen Index report on ad minutes for the 2004 candidates).

In chronological order, here are the latest surveys.

I. The first reported out was Pulse Asia, February 21-25, 2010 (released March 5, 2010):

clip_image004

The survey tells us that at the time it was conducted, Aquino enjoyed an overall 7 point lead over Villar nationally; leading in the NCR (16 pts.), Balance Luzon (2 pts.), Mindanao (19 pts.) and very slightly in the Visayas (1 pt.); and among Class ABC (8 pts.), Class D (8 pts.) and Class E (3 pts.)

This was remarkable because it answered two questions pending since the January surveys:

1. Would either of the main contenders show a game-winning trajectory? From his earlier, spectacular, numbers, Aquino has settled on a percentage in the high 30′s; after a herculean effort, Villar shot up but seems to have lost some steam. If, however, Aquino had slid and Villar, in turn, had actually overtaken Aquino, then a bandwagon effect might have been created. But neither before, when the resources that could be poured into the effort were limitless, and since, when a much more strategic effort is required, has Villar managed to actually overtake the frontrunner.

2. Did the C-5 Controversy have any effect? It seems it has.

See the following:

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II. Next came the Manila Standard Today survey,February 20-26, 2010:

Again in terms of plotting the trajectory of the candidates, see the following:

Slide03

This survey has a wealth of interesting data (see also messaging section below): it tells us Aquino leads Villar in the NCR (9 pts.), in South Luzon (7 pts.), in the Visayas (5 pts.), in Mindanao (3 pts.) and among Economic Class ABC (6 pts.), Economic Class D (4 pts.), Age Group 18-24 (2 pts.), Age Group 35-44 (12 pts.), Catholic Voters (4 pts.), Born Again Voters (2 pts.), among Urban Voters (9 pts.), among Female Voters (4 pts.) and barely ahead among Male Voters (1 pt.).

Villar leads in North Luzon (9 pts.), among Economic Class E (2 pts.), and among Age Group 25-34 (3 pts.), Age Group 45+ (1 pt.), among Iglesia ni Cristo Voters (12 pts.), Aglipayan Voters (11 pts.), Protestant Voters (12 pts.), Voters with “Other” Religious Affiliations (6 pts.), Muslim Voters (6 pts.) and among Rural Voters (2 pts.).

III. And finally, Social Weather Stations, February 24-28, 2010, which used the simulated ballot for the first time.

SWS Bworld Aquio Villar Feb 24 to 28
In terms of the two leading contenders, Aquino leads in the NCR (by 22 pts.), Visayas (5 pts.), and Mindanao (2 pts.), and Class D (the largest class, by 4 pts.); Villar leads in Balance Luzon (4 pts.), among Class ABC (3 pts.) and Class E (2 pts.).

SWS Bworld Estrada Teodoro Feb 24-28

SWS Bworld Villanueva Gordon Feb 21 to 28

SWS Bworld Others Feb 24 to 28

(see also Marichu Lambino)

Background reading

The real contenders and Why SWS Presidential Survey Does Not Add Up To 100% But 300%, both October 14, 2009;

The blog Alphanumeric makes for interesting reading, see Pulse Asia: Preferences for Presidentiables January 2010 Update and Pulse Asia: Preferences for Presidentiables February 2010 Update.

As for the use of surveys to test political messages, see Arroyo pollster commissioned SWS to test political messages, April 27, 2006.

While the Pulse Asia survey tells us the main divisions are between those voting on the basis of a candidate not having a corruption record and those putting forward caring for the poor:

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It’s interesting that the Manila Standard Today survey (run by the same fellow who used to undertake in-house surveys for the President) asks a lot of questions focusing on messaging. Look at the slides on voter conversion, on their awareness and favorability, and their slogans, and so forth.

Manila Standard Today Feb 21 to 26 Survey

See also the following interesting slides: Second choices of already-committed voters (i.e. if Estrada were to drop out, his vote would be split between Aquino and Villar; if Teodoro dropped out, more of his votes would go to Villar than Aquino, etc.); Levels of commitment of voters to their candidates.

The Long View: To take the lead by leadership

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The Long View
To take the lead by leadership
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:51:00 03/10/2010

THE REMAINDER OF THE NATIONAL CAMpaign has two parts: from the present time, when the newest surveys have defined the remaining challenges ahead for the two leading candidates, to Holy Week; and then, from the resumption of the campaign after the Comelec ban on campaigning on Holy Thursday and Good Friday (April 1-2), to the end of campaigning on May 8, two days before election day. Straddling these two phases – the middle and final stretches of the presidential and vice-presidential campaigns – are the local campaign period that begins on March 26 and overseas voting which begins on April 10.

Most voters have already made up their minds, but it isn’t enough for a cheat-proof win for the leading contenders. As the campaign becomes increasingly ferocious, the candidates might gain or lose small percentages but all of them need to find a way to set themselves apart from the rest and demonstrate what most voters are hoping to find, after a decade of missed opportunities: leadership.

The challenge of leadership hinges on the willingness – or reluctance – of the candidates to take a stand on the President going beyond toying with the idea of voiding the coming elections by means of martial law to actively pursuing it as a viable contingency plan.

G.K. Chesterton, in “Eugenics and Other Evils,” put it this way: “The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often necessary to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.”

The President likes exploring multiple options simultaneously. For this reason, she has an official candidate, but is also pursuing her own candidacy – both in her district and nationwide – while putting in place obstacles in the path of candidates who she knows will never compromise or collaborate with her. Which is where martial law comes in.

The President anointed a candidate whose personal qualities have been overshadowed by his owing his candidacy to her, strangling his chances in the cradle. As if the President’s kiss of death weren’t enough, the Frankenstein Coalition isn’t supporting his candidacy with the vigor (and resources) it approached the 2004 elections. This can only suggest that Gilbert Teodoro is a token candidate in the eyes of the President herself, and it’s well to remember that Ana Maria Pamintuan had pointed out in her column back in March last year that Teodoro was viewed as someone who had to relinquish the defense portfolio if plans, then rumored to be afoot for martial law, could prosper. As it turned out, when the President broke the last remaining post-Edsa political taboo (martial law), Teodoro was already a candidate, out of Camp Aguinaldo, and could only make a cosmetic impact on the outcome of the Ampatuan Massacre.

So much for Teodoro, now in the galling situation of not even getting the full commitment of his President or his party. The President instead has been pouring resources into Pampanga to get herself elected to the House of Representatives and is said to be meeting quietly with congressmen and local officials to get herself elected speaker in the next administration. Plan A.

Meanwhile, Plans B etc.: She has set out to unconstitutionally (and unethically) appoint the next chief justice; she has appointed a controversial chief of staff for the Armed Forces; she overturned a century of jurisprudence by having Cabinet officials remain in office even after they decided to pursue their own candidacies – foiled only when the Supreme Court overturned itself; and her people tried to handicap future presidents by proposing to give the current Pagcor and immigration chiefs fixed terms (foiled in the former case and reduced to a year in the latter instance).

The Comelec has, meanwhile, set the tone for the coming elections by saying it expected 30 percent of the automated precincts to end up conducting manual polls (coinciding with Prospero Pichay’s confident expectations of the administration being able to deliver 33 percent of the votes), while accrediting the PPCRV and denying accreditation for Namfrel supposedly because certain Namfrel officials were “partisan” although PPCRV can be said to be partisan, too, as it has consistently toed the Comelec line, peculiar behavior for a supposed electoral watchdog.

All this suggests a government that considers failure an option for the election. But a credible election – one that takes place and isn’t accompanied by massive disenfranchisement, system failures, and a protracted, controversial count – is the minimum requirement for the country being able to move on and buckle down to work. As the campaign enters its final phases, the noise, locally and nationally, can only help the usual suspects in devising ways to expand their options, with the ultimate objective of keeping the President’s options open while reducing those of her potential successors.

Someone has to stand head and shoulders above the crowd, and focus public attention on the collision course between the President and her allies and the May elections being conducted credibly. To return to Chesterton’s warning, it isn’t an axe that’s in the air. Instead, the President is moving with all the deliberate and inexorable speed of a PNR train. It’s crawling along because by that means it can remain unnoticed in the din of the current campaign – until it’s too late.

Background reading:

Please see the following:

Danger signs, in The Mount Balatucan Monitor; Bangit is next AFP chief in Ellen Tordesillas’ blog. When a tie is not really a tie in the March 10 PDI. Defining the terms of combat, in Mon Casiple’s blog.

My articles Getting even, March 23, 2009; The Palace strikes back and other scenarios, March 24, 2009;  Out of sight, out of mind, April 30, 2009; Thirty-three percent, September 15, 2009;  Day 1 and Day 2 of the martial law hearings in Congress last December; Midnight appointments, January 15, 2010;  Scorched earth to the bitter end, January 18, 2010;  The dynamics of succession, January 23, 2010.

Jekyll-and-Hide campaign in the PCIJ, September 2, 2005; Ronnie Puno and the endgame, October 30, 2007 and  Between Puno and Puno, August 24, 2009 by John Nery.

Albert del Rosario’s Sleepless Nights, August 14, 2009 and Mrs. Putin, November 30, 2009 in Ricky Carandang’s blog.


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The Long View: Social justice

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The Long View
Social justice
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:22:00 03/08/2010

SOCIAL justice, a President once said, “Is far more beneficial when applied as a matter of sentiment and not of law.” Point XI in the Nacionalista Coalition platform in 1935 was, “When the resources of the country so permit, we shall begin the expropriation of great estates, so that they may be divided into lots and sold to private citizens, preferably their actual occupants. We shall encourage the formation of small land-ownership, which is the bulwark of democracy, the guarantee of public order, and a stabilizing force. It is our desire that every Filipino shall own his own land, the house in which he lives, and the farm which he tills.”

But the devil, as they say, is in the details. On the one hand, there was the active hostility of landlords to state expropriation; in the middle was the state itself, far more dependent in those days on the income generated by the sugar industry than it is now; and on the other, the conservatism of the peasantry itself even as radicalism made inroads among the peasantry. In his classic book, “The Huk Rebellion,” Benedict Kerkvliet says the problem arose when traditional expectations among farmers clashed with the businesslike attitudes of a new generation of landlords: “To the modern landlords, their relationship to their tenants was a business proposition – the peasants were laborers who would be employed as long as they helped turn land into profits.”

However, Kerkvliet continued, “The peasantry, meanwhile, wanted traditional patronage more than ever, lest they succumb not only to such usual hazards as poor harvests and sickness, but also [because] – Progress’ had not brought even modest economic gains to the peasantry, while at the same time severing numerous ties with their landlords that peasants wanted to retain and to which they felt entitled. The traditional landlord-tenant relationship included far more than a simple exchange of labor for money, so peasants wanted to keep it. They wanted the landed elites to acknowledge those ties and the obligations entailed. The stage was thus set for a conflict.”

In the first State of the Nation Address in 1936, a modification of the Coalition Platform was announced. In brief, land would be opened up for settlement in Mindanao and other relatively underpopulated areas, while the redistribution of land would be limited to “the expropriation of those portions of the large – haciendas’ which are urban in character and are occupied by the houses of the tenants. With the opportunity to own their own homes thus assured, the settlement of the present difficulties of the tenants relative to their farm lands might no longer be of urgent necessity.”

This did not turn out to be the case. The same President told an American communist, Sol Auerbach, in 1937, that he had warned landlords, “I tell them, if you know what’s good for you better improve the conditions of your tenants. You do not have enough sons for the army, so we must conscript our soldiers from the poor. We put guns in their hands and teach them how to use them. If you are not careful they will use those guns against you. If you want to save what you have, give them 10 percent of it or they will take it all.”

By the late 1960s, agrarian unrest, effectively crushed in the early 1950s, resumed on a large scale, as population growth closed off the social safety valve of resettlement (and sparked new problems in Mindanao between Christians and Muslims). Macapagal attempted land reform but was foiled by the landlords; Benigno Aquino Jr. proposed corporate collectivization as a middle path: preserve economies of scale for sugar while transferring ownership to farmers and landlords proportionally by means of shares of stock.

President Marcos aimed to score propaganda points at the onset of the New Society when he proclaimed the entire country under land reform. But he decreed the redistribution of rice and corn lands and left the sugar estates alone, focusing, instead, on creating a state sugar cartel which led to the collapse of the sugar industry in 1984.

After Edsa, radicals demanded the immediate expropriation of estates while landlords threatened civil war if this was done. President Aquino in her last days of full lawmaking powers issued two executive issuances, the first placing all lands under land reform (thus removing the Marcos-era exemption for sugar land); the second, giving 10 years for redistribution to take place: but the details were left to the incoming Congress. Civil war was prevented by giving landlords a seat at the bargaining table, but rebellion was perpetuated by giving radicals a justification for confrontation.

From 1987 to 1992 a total of 898,420 landless tenants and farm workers became legitimate recipients of either land titles or free patents and support services. Under President Aquino, 2.6 million hectares or 33.3 percent of the total CARP scope of 7.8 million hectares were redistributed. But Hacienda Luisita submitted, instead, to another kind of redistribution, which was the Stock Distribution Option or SDO.

Overlooked in the debate over this scheme is that it represented one alternative to outright redistribution among tenant-farmers of hacienda lands and, at the time it was proposed, a possible way forward to preserve economies of scale while attending to Social Justice concerns. Other landlords such as the Arroyos were more clever: they promised to redistribute but bogged down the process in legal red tape, ensuring neither stock option schemes nor redistribution. For the middle path, the situation finally came to a head when both radicals and the government clashed on Luisita, eliminating SDO as a viable option in terms of public opinion for what is now “sunset industry.”

See also my entries, Planters and Millers (2006) and The Return of the Sugar Bloc (2007) and my 2007 Arab News column, Philippine Economy: A Cautionary Tale.

The Long View: Do not enter

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The Long View
Do not enter
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:34:00 03/03/2010

RECENTLY THE US STATE DEPARTMENT, IN ITS international narcotics control strategy report (which helps congressional oversight with foreign aid) cited our government’s own apprehensions (as voiced by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) over the possibility that drug money might affect the outcome of the May elections – or, for the cynically-inclined, at least provide a pretext for a post-election crackdown on selected targets.

In 2008, the blog Third Wave began to warn of the influence big-time drug lords would have on the 2010 elections. In January 2009, Mon Casiple and editorials in this paper and in the Negros Chronicle pointed out pretty much the same thing. Last July, Babes Romualdez tipped off his readers about America’s concern, conveyed through CIA chief Leon Panetta, about drug money being used to finance terrorism. At the time, Romualdez estimated illegal drugs to be a $7.5-billion-a-year industry; the State Department report estimates it at $6.4 billion to $8.4 billion annually.

But that’s just one hissing head of a many-headed hydra menacing the elections.

In 2008, political scientist Paul Hutchcroft pointed out that “As Philippine elections have become increasingly costly, they have encouraged politicians to become more creative in raising funds, whether through the promise of legislative and regulatory favors, real-estate scams, involvement in gambling syndicates, or links to drug lords and the underworld. In a surprisingly candid moment, Speaker Jose de Venecia said of the system: “It’s the drug lords and the gambling lords … who finance the candidates. So from Day One, they become corrupt. So the whole political process is rotten.” In February 2009, when spectacular bank robberies were hogging the headlines, I recalled Alex Magno’s reminder that the primary sources of political funding are: (1) Drug money; (2) Gambling money; (3) Quotas on customs and internal revenue bureaus; (4) The Philippine National Police.

Aside from claims of police connivance in protection rackets, there are also allegations that warlords use political office to extort tribute from syndicates. The Ampatuans have been tagged as this type of warlords, but PDEA’s Dionisio Santiago remains tight-lipped, saying only that the agency had received reports about politicians in alliance with drug traffickers. Fr. Eliseo Mercado has gone as far as to state there have been four G’s operating in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao: guns, goons, gold and Gloria: with President Macapagal-Arroyo’s patronage allowing the Ampatuans to become paramount warlords and untouchable so that no one could do anything if, indeed, they’d been acting as protectors of various syndicates – from smugglers, kidnappers to traffickers.

Since May 2005, the President and her family have faced accusations of being on the take from gambling syndicates. Her response was to brazen it out, knowing full well who matters, politically. Early last year, as speculation mounted about her possible run for the House of Representatives, her increasing visitations to Pampanga included her conspicuous presence at the birthday party of Lilia Pineda, wife of supposed jueteng lord Bong.

By last June, Pampanga Mayors League (PML) president and Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda could boast: “There is no need for President Arroyo to campaign. We will give her an overwhelming mandate if she decides to seek a congressional seat.”

Now this could merely be guilt by association. After all, Christ befriended prostitutes and tax collectors, and the President likes to quote the scripture. As she has piously intoned many a time, let he who is without sin cast the first stone (translated into more secular language as the administration mantra, “Where is your proof? Bring it to the proper forum,” most recently quoted by Rep. Mikey Arroyo at Pineda’s birthday). The only ones who get a stoning, legally-speaking, anyway, being the destabilizers like that self-confessed sinner, Jun Lozada.

Meanwhile, Chavit Singson - whose initials might as well be the three G’s – publicly agonizes over who should be worthy of his political support: Gilbert Teodoro Jr. or Manuel Villar Jr., neither of whom seems displeased by the news. But then again, the Frankenstein coalition’s national directorate practically glitters with the names of topnotch warlords, while the Nacionalistas aren’t snobbish when it comes to people like their candidate for governor of Batangas, Armando Sanchez, who knows what it’s like to be tagged as a jueteng lord. It all makes that other NP-affiliated candidate (he seems to be officially under the wing of the Lakas-Kampi-CMD but is on the ticket, in one town, of the NP affiliate) Joc-joc Bolante look strictly like a white-collar candidate for an American country club-style prison.

In the end what this means is that the President’s coterie of thuggish friends are fully intent on continuing to throw their weight about, whether in association with her as she solidifies her petty grand duchy in Pampanga, or with the Frankenstein Coalition of her putative official candidate for president, or even with the Nacionalistas. Every time big fishes pose with the President – or presidential aspirants – it serves the purpose of a neon sign flashing in neon letters directed at PDEA and the press: “Do not enter our turf.”

It does not help that candidate Benigno Aquino III has given fair warning that those engaged in smuggling and other syndicated crimes are known to the authorities. Now, they have the time and incentive to rally around whoever seems best poised to thwart his candidacy.